The present invention relates to compressors and systems comprising compressors. In particular, the present invention relates to supersonic compressors comprising supersonic compressor rotors and systems comprising the same.
Conventional compressor systems are widely used to compress gases and find application in many commonly employed technologies ranging from refrigeration units to jet engines. The basic purpose of a compressor is to transport and compress a gas. To do so, a compressor typically applies mechanical energy to a gas in a low pressure environment and transports the gas to and compresses the gas within a high pressure environment from which the compressed gas can be used to perform work or as the input to a downstream process making use of the high pressure gas. Gas compression technologies are well established and vary from centrifugal machines to mixed flow machines, to axial flow machines. Conventional compressor systems, while exceedingly useful, are limited in that the pressure ratio achievable by a single stage of a compressor is relatively low. Where a high overall pressure ratio is required, conventional compressor systems comprising multiple compression stages may be employed. However, conventional compressor systems comprising multiple compression stages tend to be large, complex and high cost. Conventional compressor systems having counter-rotating stages are also known.
More recently, compressor systems comprising a supersonic compressor rotor have been disclosed. Such compressor systems, sometimes referred to as supersonic compressors, transport and compress gases by contacting an inlet gas with a moving rotor having rotor rim surface structures which transport and compress the inlet gas from a low pressure side of the supersonic compressor rotor to a high pressure side of the supersonic compressor rotor. While higher single stage pressure ratios can be achieved with a supersonic compressor as compared to a conventional compressor, further improvements would be highly desirable.
As detailed herein, the present invention provides novel multistage supersonic compressors which provide unexpected enhancements in compressor performance relative to known supersonic compressors.